Cain, a successful black businessman, radio host, and the former CEO of Godfather’s pizza, was the first Republican to launch a presidential exploratory committee for the 2012 US presidential election. Cain, a Tea-Party supporter, made the comments about Planned Parenthood during a question-and-answer session with reporters at an event hosted by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative organization based in Washington, D.C.

“Here’s why I support de-funding Planned Parenthood, because you probably don’t hear a lot of people talking about this,” Cain told CNSNews.com reporter on Tuesday, “when Margaret Sanger - check my history - started Planned Parenthood, the objective was to put these centers in primarily black communities so they could help kill black babies before they came into the world.”

“It’s not Planned Parenthood. No, it’s planned genocide,” said Cain.

Cain told another reporter that Planned Parenthood was still “carrying out its original mission.”

“I’ve talked to young girls who go in there, and they [Planned Parenthood] don’t talk about how you plan parenthood,” explained Cain. “They don’t talk about adoption as an option. They don’t say, ‘Well, bring your parents in so we can sit down and talk with you, and counsel with you before you make this decision.’”

“There’s not any planning other than to abort the baby.”

Cain said the heavy preponderance of Planned Parenthood clinics in African-American/minority communities, “says to me they are targeting blacks.”

Statistical evidence from the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) shows that minorities, especially blacks, carry an enormous share of the total number of US abortions. According to CDC data (2006), blacks accounted for 36.4 percent of all U.S. abortions, even though the last US census data (2000) put them at 12.3 percent of the population. White women, however, accounted for only 36.1 percent of all U.S. abortions despite accounting for 69 percent of the total female population (2000) in the US.

However US census data from 2007 also shows that blacks also have a lower total fertility rate (2.168 births per woman) on par with the white majority (2.112), but far below rate of the burgeoning Hispanic minority (2.995). The replacement rate for demographic stability is 2.1 - a level which the black community did not meet between 2003-2005, indicating population decline.

Veronica Byrd, Planned Parenthood’s director of African-American Media, spoke out against Cain, and told CNN that the pro-life Republican was “clearly out of the mainstream” by supporting efforts to bar Planned Parenthood federal funding. Byrd referred to an unnamed study claiming that “fewer than one in 10 abortion clinics are located in predominantly African-American neighborhoods” as evidence that Planned Parenthood was not deliberately targeting blacks.

Byrd, however, did not address the Planned Parenthood founder’s past or racial attitudes toward blacks.